Bow and Arrow Billies - By Sean Shea |
|---|
|
As I answered the phone, I recognized the voice on the other end as my longtime hunting partner Shawn Sliter. I could sense the excitement in his voice as he said that we had drawn our favorite area to deer hunt, for the second straight year. That was all it took to hear and the rest of the day was shot for doing any kind of work. The only thing I could think about was the big one that got away last year, and the revenge that was going to be mine this year. Then it hit me that I had put in for other tags and started wondering if I may have drawn another permit. However, I did not think I could be that lucky
On the drive home all I could think about was when I needed to start scouting for that deer tag. As I drove up I could see the white envelope in the mailbox, and I was like a kid in a candy store. As I ran up I noticed that there was more than one envelope in the box, there was three. My mouth started to dry up with every packet I opened. The first envelope held my archery deer tag, the second held a archery bull elk tag, and the biggest surprise was the third which held a PIW Rocky Mountain Goat tag. This coveted tag allowed me to hunt any goat unit in the state. The first thing that came to my mind was that they were sent to the wrong address, then I noticed my name on all the tags. I had to walk in and sit down for a second to catch my breath. I still couldn’t believe what I was looking at. Against 275 to 1 odds, I had drawn a goat tag in Nevada. Then I realized that this was my second goat tag in two years. I had been lucky in 1998 having drawn a goat tag in Montana.
The next couple of months all I could think about was this goat tag. In July my good friend Wayne Capurro, who also had draw a goat tag, asked if I wanted to go scout the East Humboldt’s with him. Since I have never been in that range I decided I would take him up on his offer and I am so grateful I did. There were goats every where we looked. I couldn’t believe it. Wayne and I stalked to within 10 feet of a big billy and were able to catch it on film. By the end of that trip I had decided where I was going to hunt.
Since my goat season was open for two months I had decided to try for them in October, but plans changed. My bull elk season opened the first part of September and I had both the weeks off to try for one of Nevada’s big bulls. To my surprise I had arrowed a big bull the middle of the first week. I still had a week and a half off of work so I decided to drop the elk off at a locker in Elko and head up into the beautiful East Humboldt’s to try and arrow a Nevada Mountain Goat.
As I packed my camp up onto the Humboldt spine I was noticing nannies and kids everywhere. Late that first evening I glassed a huge billy laying on a snow bank and had decided to try for him the next morning. As the sun just broke over Spruce Mountain I found him feeding along a cliff several hundred meters from where he was the night before, and he had picked up another big billy. As I watched them I decided that I would take either of them that gave me a shot. Before the hunt I made up my mind that I would not shoot at a goat unless they were in a place that they would not fall and break everything. I thought the animal deserved at least that.
The next hour I watched and videoed as they fed up and bedded on a snow bank on the lower end of a cliff. The next three hours I spent going down a vertical cliff to try and get within range. As I came to the last rock I crawled up and peeked over it. There they were not 30 yards in front of me laying on the snow bank. The biggest billy was laying facing me and the other was just beyond him bedded the other direction. I had to sit at 30 yards for almost two hours before the biggest got up to stretch. I came to draw, and watched as the goat turned away from me and stopped. Then from my right side I heard people talking, then I realized that they were mooing at the goats. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I couldn’t get a good shot. The big billies, wanting no part of these two-legged bovines, exploded up the cliff and didn’t stop until they reached the top. Needless to say there was some profanities yelled and it wasn’t from the goat mooers.
The next day I decided to move south and try the area that Wayne and I scouted in July. As I glassed I noticed that there was billies all over, and no nannies or kids. I had found the bachelor pad that I was looking for. On one mountainside I noticed a good billy with a dark streak down one side just behind the shoulder. I could tell he had been shot earlier in the season and had gotten away. He seemed to get around all right and he was a good billy so I decided to try for him. I watched as he bedded down under a little ledge for the day. The second stalk was on. It took several hours to get to the last spot I had seen him bed. As I crept up to the edge I caught a glimpse of white blowing in the wind to my left just 18 meters away. There was no way for a shot, so I had to hunker down until he decided to get up. Three hours later, with both of my legs numb, he stood up, I come to draw, he turns broadside and I release my arrow and watch as it glances off a micro-branch between him and me. All I could do was laugh, and think that that billy has at least three lives and he is pushing them all to the limit. Later that day I found him and five other billies that he picked up, but they were bedded in the safe vertical country.
Monday, day 4, D day. Before light I walked up to a vantage point that I could glass. As the sun broke, I found two billies feeding on a talus slope about a mile away and the final stalk was on. I stopped on the ridge about 700 meters away and glassed them until they bedded up on the ledges above the talus. Two hours and one butt puckering nasty vertical cliff later I was 150 meters from the billies. As I watched they both got up and started feeding in my direction. They stopped about 75 meters out and bedded under some ledges out of sight. The wind was perfect and I had plenty of daylight left to make a stalk. An hour later I came up to the edge that I thought was around 20 meters from where they were bedded. While I was stalking, one must have gotten up and moved up hill because I was now looking at the back of the head of the biggest billy at 3 meters away. That’s right 3 meters away! I could of clubbed him with the end of my bow but decided against that. Forty minutes later he decided to get up and that was his last mistake. The shot was quartering away and the arrow entered the shoulder and exited the front chest area, leaving him dead on his hoofs. He rolled 30 meters down the talus slope and stopped against a boulder. As I walked down to the billy I realized that he was the first one in the state of Nevada to have been harvested with a bow and arrow.
As I packed my camp and goat out of the beautiful East Humboldt’s I noticed the shadow of an eagle flying above. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I do now. I just want to say thanks Wayne for being on this trip with me.
* Sean's goat, the first harvested in Nevada with archery equipment, scored 47 6/8 Boone & Crockett points.